The Future
by Huntinghair
Summary: The College of Winderhold is accepting a new group of students, when one student discovers a mysterious artifact in her room. The questions of who planted it there and why arise. Will this artifact affect the future of the College? Or perhaps, the future of everyone. (May contain blood, gore, violence, and sarcasm)


**The Future**

"Welcome to the College of Winterhold! I'm Professor Voren. Before we proceed with the tour, do any of you have questions?" Voren crossed his arms and leaned to his left side. None of the students were asking questions or coming forward. He decided to proceed.

"Well, in that case..." he turned and opened the door to the university. It opened into a medium sized room with a door to the left, right and an archway leading into a very large room with a giant hovering ball in the center of it. A few of the students gasped when they saw it.

"This is the general training room. You can practice just about any form of spell in this room." he then pointed to the left door. "That's the Archmages Quarters. She is NOT to be disturbed at this time. And if you need to speak to her, please go through one of the professors first. The Archmage is a VERY busy woman, and if something can be resolved without having to bring her into it, then things go a lot smoother around here."

Then he pointed to the right door.

"That's the Arcanium. It's our library of tomes and knowledge. Let me give you this warning." he grinned a little then continued "DON'T for the love of whatever God you worship try to take one of those books without asking the librarian. He WILL kill you." The initiates eyes widened a little at the last part.

"Okay, that concludes this section of the tour, now lets show you to your quarters." He turned and opened the main door leading outside. After all of the students had followed him outside, they followed the ringed exterior path and at the junction turned right leading to a door on the left built into the wall of the university.

"This is the student and professor quarters." He opened the door and motioned for the students to go in first. After they all piled in he followed.

"Students are on the first floor, professors are on the second. Do you have any questions?" A young Breton girl raised her hand.

"Step forward, and state your name please." Voren smiled warmly as she stepped forward.

"My name is Credesa."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Credesa. What was your question?"

"When are we going to start our lessons?"

"Tomorrow morning. We will come and collect you. In the mean time, I suggest you all get settled in. Those backpacks your carrying look a little heavy. If anyone needs anything just come up stairs and knock on one of our doors. Goodnight students." with that Professor Voren disappeared. The students looked at each other then spread out and picked a room for themselves. After unpacking the students went to sleep. The professors not so much.

"We have five this year!" Voren exclaimed barely able to contain his excitment.

"That's wonderful." an older looking Dunmer woman said.

Oh come on Lendri! Have some enthusiasm! These young people are here to learn about magic and it's our job to teach them! It's us who get to shape their grasp of reality and magic!" Lendri frowned.

"Sorry if I'm not bubbling with joy like you Marshall. I've been here for a long time. I was here before The Great Collapse when we would get thirty students a year. Now everyone hates us, and the only students we get are either outcasts, have never even heard of us, or their mentally insane." Lendri broke eye contact with Marshall Voren and began to stare into space.

"I'm sorry you feel that way Lendri. The way I see it. We have the chance to help five people begin their lives and to teach them everything they need to know to make it in this world. Almost makes me feel like a parent..." with that Voren walked into his room, shut the door and went to sleep for the night.

"GOOD MORNING STUDENTS!" a voice came from outside her door. Credesa opened her eyes slowly. _"I don't wanna get up..."_ she thought to herself as she forced herself to sit upright. She heard a loud knock at her door. "Time to get up and start your lessons Credesa!" Voren called from outside her room. _"I should have kept my mouth shut." _She swung her legs over to the left side of her bed and slipped on her shoes.

"I'm coming." she said rather softly. She opened the door to see Professor Voren standing there with his arms crossed.

"Honestly," he said with a frown "I thought you'd be the first one up this morning. Maybe the second, but certainly not the last!" She looked behind him to see her other classmates standing fully awake and ready to begin.

"I'm sorry professor. I don't know why I slept in so late." his frown quickly turned into a warm smile and he put his hand on his shoulder and looked into her eyes.

"Credesa, theres no need to be sorry. We don't start until everyone is ready." He took his hands off her shoulders and turned to face the other students "If there's one thing I've learned about magic, it's that you absolutely MUST be prepared for it. Lack of sleep, poor train of thought, distractions, anything taking your mind away from focusing on your studies is dangerous not only to yourselves, but to everyone around you." Voren then pointed to the door "Students, meet me in the training room. AKA the big hovering ball room as my other students used to say." that got a few giggles from a couple students as they made their way to the door and left for the training room. He then turned back to Credesa.

"Do you know what time it is?" he asked, his warm smile gone, replaced with a stern and cautious look. She froze in place. _"It can't possibly be that late. It feels like I just went to sleep."_

"I'm not sure Sir." He looked down and scanned her body, then looked back into her eyes.

"Go into your room and get fully dressed, I don't like talking to people in their undergarments." He then turned his back to her and waited. She went back into her room and closed the door. _"Something must be wrong." _She got her Novice Robes on and opened the door again. Voren was sitting across the room in a chair reading a book. When he heard her close the door he looked up at her with shocked amazement.

"You are the ONLY woman I have EVER known to take two and a half hours to get your robes on!" he said incredulously. _"Two and a half hours? I only had that door shut for a minute or so."_

"Um, are you being funny, Sir?" she asked delicately. He rose from his chair, dropped the book he was reading and walked over to her. He stopped about a foot from her face, and with him being around six feet tall, and her being only five feet and three inches tall, he towered over her.

"Do I look like I'm being funny?" he stared her down for a good two minutes before she worked up the courage to answer.

"No...?"

"Good answer." he backed off a little then began to pace. "You seem to be a nice girl, so I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm a very lenient teacher, and I can understand staying up late gossiping with your fellow students, on Oblivion I know I did the same when I took classes here. But I DO NOT appreciate being made to wait for a prolonged period of time. Or being mocked. And today you've done both. Consider this your first warning. Now get to the training room NOW." he stopped pacing and stared at her. She went over to the door opened it, then turned back to face Voren. He was nowhere to be seen. _Goodness that's creepy. Here I though he was a nice guy, and now because I'm a few minutes late he blows this all outta proportion. What an ass."_

When she arrived at the training room her fellow students were already training. A Khajiit and an Argonian were practicing Firebolt and Ward spells. A Nord was off by himself practicing Alteration spells and a young cute Dunmer girl was taking a lesson in Illusion from Professor Voren. _"How did her beat me here?"_ As she walked into the room the other students stopped what they were doing and looked at her. The Argonian grinned at her and then winked.

"Caught another few hours of sleep did'cha?" he said to her. The Khajiit snickered and chimed in.

"She must of needed some more beauty sleep." then he whispered "she could use a little more in my opinion..." the Nord male overheard that and chuckled, then Argonian didn't. Neither did Professor Voren who was standing right behind the Khajiit.

"That's enough of that Khajiit. Now, since everyone's finally here, we can begin the introductions. As you all know, I'm Professor Marshall Voren. If you haven't figured it out I'm an Imperial and I hail from Cryodiil. Now I want each of you to announce your full name, and where you hail from. Starting with you." he pointed to the Khajiit.

"I am Razeck Duneshre, and I was born and raised here in Skyrim." Voren then pointed to the Argonian.

"I am Targona. I have no last name. I don't know where I was born, only that I was raised in the Riften orphanage from as far back as I can remember."

"I'm sorry to hear that Targona. Hopefully you will find a family here with us at the university." Voren said as he laid a hand on the Argonians shoulder. Targona smiled. "Alright, now you Nord."

"I am Ulfious Snakeskin, and I'm from Morrowind." The dunmer girl walked up.

"I'm Dreana Velas, and I'm from Morrowind as well." Voren then looked at Credesa.

"My name is Credesa Odevin, I'm from High Rock."

"Well, now that we all know each other, lets get started. Todays first activity is going to be in the most famous school of magic. Destruction. And for that, allow me to introduce my good friend and colleague, Professor Xander Clouse." A slightly older Imperial man walked into the room.

"Good evening Class." _"Evening?" _Credesa thought, _"Wasn't it Morning about fifteen minutes ago?"_ "It's an honor to be teaching a group of such, diverse, and intriguing young people. Today we are going to start with the basics. Who knows how to cast a Flame spell?" Targona, Razeck, and Dreana raised their hands. Credesa wasn't even paying attention. She was watching Professor Voren walking away from the class.

"Okay, Targona. Lets see you cast a Flame spell at this pillar over here." Credesa began to walk towards Voren as Targona started casting a Flame spell as instructed. _"Something is going on here, and I'm damned sure going to get to the bottom of it!"_

"Professor!?" she called out to Voren. He stopped and turned to her.

"Yes?"

"Sir. I think we need to talk. Something strange is going on." He eyed her carefully.

"Aside from you be terribly late and somewhat rude, I see nothing wrong."

"That's the problem professor! I wasn't late! When I went into my room to get dressed I was only in there for a minute or two, certainly not for two and a half hours!" The other students and Professor Clouse had stopped what they were doing to see what all the noise was about. Voren looked past her.

"I'm terribly sorry Professor Clouse. Please continue your class, this young lady and I will go else where." Professor Clouse nodded politely then continued his lessons. Voren leaned over to Credesa and whispered,

"You and I are going to have a nice long talk." he motioned for her to step out into the courtyard. Once outside he closed the door, then turned to her and asked,

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Of course I do! Why would I lie to you?!" she was starting to get upset. Voren grunted in frustration.

"You do have a point. You haven't been here long enough to make anyone terribly mad at you, aside from me of course. And you haven't had time to make any enemies. So, tell me. What do you think is going on?" She thought for a moment, then it hit her. The door. _"It's gotta be something with the door to that room! Last night when I was unpacking I left it open, and I only closed it right when I went to sleep. And I closed it again when I went to change my clothes!"_

"Sir, I think I have an idea."

"Well? Go on!" Voren said impatiently.

"I think the door to my room may be cursed or something." He stared at her blankly.

"You think your door is cursed?" he repeated. She nodded.

"Please, explain that to me."

"Sir, last night when I was unpacking and organizing my room, I left the door open right up until I went to sleep. I had just gotten into bed and started going to sleep when you woke me up. And when you told me to get dressed and I closed the door? I was only in there for maybe two minutes. I'm telling you professor. There's something wrong with this." Voren nodded.

"Very well. Wait here." he walked back into the university main door. He returned about five minutes later with an old woman.

"This is one of our new students Lendri. She claims that the door to her room is enchanted. From what shes been saying time is passing at an extremely fast rate whenever the door is closed. When it's opened however time resumes normally." Lendri eyed Credesa for a moment.

"She's not lying." she said after a minute. "Show me to your room young lady." Lendri said sternly. Credesa lead Lendri to her room. Voren followed. They examined the door and the room.

"There's surely something magical here..." Lendri sounded distant. She began staring at the door as if she were looking into it's soul. Then she snapped back to attention. "It's not the door!" she began to frantically look around the room. Voren and Credesa looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Muttering incoherently Lendri crawled under the bed. After a moment she exclaimed,

"Ah-ha!" a moment later she crawled out from under the bed holding an amulet. It was pure black except for deep purple swirls in the center. The chain was pure black as well.

"Do either of you know what this is?" she asked knowingly. They both shook their heads in unison.

"This, is a Void Amulet."


End file.
